AN: Having a bit of writer's block with my other stories at the moment, so here's a second helping of LincolnJuice. Also, recently got the Beetlejuice Cartoon series box set, which has helped give me a couple of ideas for future chapters; particularly the chapter with Lynn Jr and Lydia hanging out.
Chapter 14
The Loud family quickly adjourned to the living room, wondering what it was that Lola had to say. Beetlejuice, on the other hand, was headed upstairs to check on Lincoln. "Hold up there, Beetlejuice!" Lola cried out.
"What!? You said it was a family meeting." The ghost replied with a frown.
"You're involved in this, buster!" She exclaimed, grabbing him by the leg and pulling him through the railing and into the center of the Loud circle.
"Whoa! Whoa! Ok, geez. Such a drag…" BJ grumbled, floating up a bit.
"Should one of us get Lincoln?" Leni inquired, looking up at the ceiling.
"Not just yet." The pageant princess said. "Let me tell you what happened first." She moved over beside BJ and cleared her throat. "After Lincoln and I had been kidnapped and brought to the criminal's hideout, Lincoln naturally tried to help us escape."
"Of course. Our brother wouldn't take that noise sitting down. Hahaha." Luan quipped, which got her shushed by her family.
"His go to strategy was to call Beetlejuice, of course." Lola continued.
"Of course." BJ commented with a big smirk.
"But they had our mouths gagged. He came close though; almost tricking them into saying it at one point, but no good...then he got my gag off...and I wouldn't do it…" Lola looked down at rug, looking like a pup caught making a mess.
"What? Why wouldn't you?" Lori asked with a bit of a frown.
"Because I can't stand Beetlejuice..." Lola replied sadly. Lori and Luna opened their mouths, but were stopped when their little sister held up a hand. "Please don't...I've already been kicking myself over it enough today…" The moment she said, another her appeared right behind her and reared up to kick her behind. Without looking, she screamed "DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT!" BJ gulped and quickly dismissed the doppleganger, whistling innocently.
"Was almost a good joke, buddy." Luan whispered with a giggle.
"...anyway, before he could come up with another plan, they came back because of the noise we were making...they took Linky away to punish him…"
"Th...they didn't hurt him, did they?" Rita asked after a horrified gasp.
"No. Worse. They...made him listen to-" She paused, looking to Lily and reconsidered her words. "-you know who-" She continued, making a few robotic motions akin to a certain toy. Everyone's eyes grew wide as they got the hint. "-for nearly an hour. On loop."
"Dude…" The third oldest of the sisters commented, shaking her head.
"Poor Linky…" Leni sniffled sadly.
"I wouldn't even wish that on my worst enemy…" Lori said, before thinking about it and amending. "...well, maybe Terri."
"Truly Hades on Earth…" Lucy muttered. Lynn Jr hopped out of her seat, moving over to the door and grabbing a baseball bat from the umbrella stand.
"Where are you going, sport?" Her father asked with concern.
"Taking a bus to the city...my bat wants to meet these goons…" The sporty Loud growled.
"Lynn Jr!" Rita suddenly rose from her seat, rushing over and confiscating her bat. The athletic brunette sulked for a moment, until her mother said "...after me."
"Whatever you say, Mom." Lynn Jr said with a grin, reaching for the doorknob.
"Mom! Lynn! Wait! It gets worse!" Lola shouted, causing both of them to freeze.
"How can it be worse than you know who!?" Lana asked, a little scared to hear the answer.
"...bout an hour after they took Linky away, they came back to film my ransom video…"
"And here's where I come in." BJ interjected, leaning over beside the prissy twin. Lola pushed him away, sighing.
"Yes...when they ungagged me, I called Beetlejuice. He took care of the crooks and brought Ronnie Anne with him."
"Ronnie Anne!? Beetlejuice, what-!?" Lori was about to scold him.
"Hey! Don't blame me! Kid was dead set on finding Lincoln, and she has great reflexes. Great enough to grab me before I disappeared." The ghost stated in his own defense. "Oh, and don't let her folks know, or she'll be grounded." The spirit suddenly turned into a pack of ground meat.
"...she helped free me, then we found and freed Lincoln...looking very...out of it."
"After an hour of 'him', I believe it." Luna said, shivering a bit.
"He made Beetlejuice go back inside his head and demanded he give him some of his power…"
"Just like with Inspector TooSlow…" Lynn Sr said out loud to himself.
"Who?" His wife inquired, turning to look at him with a raised eyebrow.
"He's a Neitherworld detective...he tricked me into thinking Beetlejuice was more dangerous than he actually was." The aspiring chef admitted, looking kinda guilty about that. "He convinced me to lure him away to arrest him, but he tried to take Lincoln too."
"What!?" The group of sisters and the Loud matriarch all exclaimed at once.
"On what grounds do they justify such an act!?" An outraged Lisa demanded to know.
"Guilt by association, I wager." BJ commented, pulling some poker chips from his inner jacket pocket. "And it's not the only thing fishy about Neitherworld law enforcement…" He added, the chips turning into a trout. "But I digress. Go ahead, Lola."
"Beetlejuice agreed to give him 30% of his power, right when Mr Talmane came in. He tried to shoot Lincoln, but he had turned his gun into a peashooter before blowing him away with a lot of wind."
"Sounds like this Beast guy was just a blowhard. Hahahaha!" Luan jested with a fit of laughter.
"This is where things started to get serious…" The pageant princess said, which quieted Luan down. "He tried to feed him to these angry, big teeth fish…"
"Whoa whoa whoa...are we talking about the same Lincoln here?" Lynn Jr asked, hardly able to believe her ears.
"Little Miss Prissy's right. Mr President was about one step away from reducing ol' fat boy to fish food." Beetlejuice confirmed.
"Then why didn't you stop him, Beetlejuice!?" Rita asked angrily, glaring at the ghost with the most. "Take your powers away from him!?"
"Gee...I never thought of that…" BJ replied sarcastically. "If I coulda done that, do you think we'd even be having this conversation!?"
"Wait...why couldn't you?" Lucy interjected, all eyes going to her.
"Really, I have no idea." The muck loving spirit admitted, rubbing his chin as he pondered this question. "I mean, I only gave him about a third of my power. But the way he resisted, you'd think I gave him seventy percent…"
"He...resisted?" The Loud mother seemed very alarmed by this. "He actively resisted your attempt to take your powers back?"
"That is generally what resisting means…" BJ mumbled, crossing his arms.
"Don't sass me right now, Beetlejuice…" She warned him, giving him the evil eye.
"Mother, Beetlejuice, now is not the time for fighting." Lisa interrupted before the two could escalate things. "Right now, we need to focus on Lincoln and what happened...to which I believe I have a theory as to what had occurred."
"And that is…?" Lori asked her most intelligent younger sister.
"First and foremost, I believe only a small part of what happened was a result of Beetlejuice's power." The little genius said, adjusting her glasses. "You know what they say about absolute power, after all."
"Absolute? But he only gave-" Leni started to say.
"Perhaps…" Lisa interrupted, knowing where that was going. "...but for a mortal like Lincoln, being handed reality bending powers and spectral abilities...I imagine it's overwhelming for our only brother."
"...but he didn't have any issues before." Lynn Sr pointed out.
"Indeed, which leads to the other issue that I believe contributed to Lincoln's behavior; his mental state." Lisa continued, hopping off of her seat and moving over to Lola and BJ. "Lola, you mentioned that Lincoln seemed 'out of it' as a result of listening to…" She glanced toward Lily before whispering "...Fenton Fox…" and then continued in her normal tone "Is that correct?"
"Yes…"
"It seems to me that, after that bit of auditory torment, our dear brother's sanity was hanging by a thread. Put that together with the excessive power granted by Beetlejuice, a general lack of experience using his magic, and his overall anger, and I fear he would have little chance of resisting the temptation to misuse said powers." Lisa explained with a sigh.
"Ok, Brainiac...what can we do about it then?" Lynn Jr asked, slowly returning to the group.
"I have three possible suggested courses of action..." The micro mastermind commented, pulling a folding projector screen from behind her back. Once she got it set up, she pulled out her phone and pushed a few icons on it. "First course of action. Prevent our brother from utilizing Beetlejuice's powers." On the screen was a childish drawing of Lincoln and Beetlejuice with a barrier between them.
"No good, sis." Luna interjected. "If things from the Neitherworld are gonna keep trying to wreak havoc on our world, our bro is gonna need BJ's powers in a pinch."
"...especially Neitherworld Law Enforcement…" Their father mumbled.
"Agreed." The super genius four year old commented. "Second course: create a device to aid in limiting the powers of Beetlejuice while within our dear brother. A simple application of discomfort should he try to-"
"No." Eleven voices sounded together.
"Saw that coming...but it is still an option." Lisa said, not perturbed by this outright denial. "And for the third option…"
Meanwhile, upstairs, Lincoln was laying face down on his bed, Bun Bun held close to his side. He had calmed down a little since the incident, but that also meant he was thinking about it more. He had almost lost all control back there and nearly killed someone. Granted, that someone was a hardened criminal who threatened his life and the life of his friend and family. However, the very idea he could have done it, and so easily, chilled him to the very core. It frightened him more than being kidnapped did. While he was stewing in his own thoughts, his ring tone started to play. Not really wishing to talk to anyone, he reached over to decline the call. However, since he wasn't really looking, he accidentally accepted the call. "Hello? Lincoln?" Came the faint voice of Lydia. "Are you there?" He quickly turned his whole body toward the phone, nearly causing Bun Bun to fly from his grip. His first instinct was to just hang up, but that seemed a very rude thing to do, especially to his girlfriend. Instead, he slowly picked up the cell and said dully;
"Hi Lydia…"
"There you are. Are you alright, Lincoln? You sound...glum."
"Not really...I'm sorry, Lydia, but I'm not really in a mood to talk…"
"What's the matter, Lincoln?" The raven haired girl asked in a tone of worry. "Are you sick? Hurt?"
"Not in the standard definitions...but I really don't want to talk about it." There is a moment of silence on the phone. He was about to hang up when he heard a knock on the door...and on his phone. Not making the connection just yet and thinking it was his family, he sighed and called out, "I'm on the ph-" His sentence was cut off when he heard his own voice outside his door. Lydia giggled inaudibly before saying;
"I know, Lincoln. May I please come in?" The one son found himself very much torn at the moment. While he still didn't want to talk to anyone, a small part of him did want to see Lydia. A couple seconds of inner debate later, he slowly reached for the door and opened it. His cheerful gothic girlfriend stepped into the room and felt a twinge of concern and sadness as she looked into his face. "What happened to you, Lincoln…? You look like you had seen a sandworm…"
"...Lola and I had been kidnapped the other night..." He muttered into his pillow.
"What!? Are you both alright!?" An alarmed Lydia inquired.
"Lola is fine...I guess. I don't know...as for me...I really don't know..." He said sullenly. He could feel Lydia's hand gently holding his hand. "...as strange as it's going to sound...the being kidnapped part isn't what's disturbing me most…"
"Lincoln, what do-?"
"I almost killed someone, Lydia…" He admitted to her, about a hair away from bursting into tears. The girl from Peaceful Pines had a look of shock on her face when she heard this. She was speechless with disbelief, which gave Lincoln the opening to tell her the story: from the kidnapping, to his punishment, to Lola, Ronnie Anne, and BJ saving him, to his demanding the ghost share his power, and finally his attempt to throw The Beast into a tub of carnivorous fish. By the time he finished the story, he couldn't hold his sobbing back any further. As he cried softly into his pillow, Lydia carefully helped him sit up on his bed, then put her arms around him, holding him tenderly. That was when the floodgates really opened, the white haired boy hugging her tightly as he cried uncontrollably into her shoulder.
"That's it, Lincoln. Just let it all out." She told him softly, patting him on the back. It took the one son a couple minutes to calm down completely, sniffling terribly after his bout of tears. "Feel a little better?" She asked,offering him a handkerchief.
"...a little...I guess…" He answered in a choked up voice before he blew his nose.
"That's good. Now, I want you to listen to me, Lincoln." Lydia said, keeping one arm around him as she moved to sit beside him. "Yes, you almost did something regretful, but you weren't thinking straight. Your judgement was clouded by the stress of being kidnapped, the worry for your sister and...uh...Fenton." She had to admit she didn't really see what was so bad about what Lincoln described regarding Fenton Fox, but something about it clearly bothered him a lot. Perhaps she could look into it later. "Anyone who knows you would know you would never do something like that under normal circumstances..."
"...and there's the key phrase, Lydia...under normal circumstances. With Beetlejuice around, things in my life are about as far from normal as it gets. And next time, I might not stop. I could seriously hurt someone...an innocent, you, my family..." He looked down at the floor, looking as blue as the sky.
"Lincoln, I doubt you would let it get that far again." Lydia tried to assure him. However, her words seemed to have unusually little effect on him. In his mind, if he had BJ's power within him, he was a ticking time bomb. But what could he do?
"...you know, you're right, Lydia." He told her, lifting his head back up, a look of finality on his face. "I won't...because I'm never using Beetlejuice's powers again."
"What?"
"If I don't have access to his ghostly abilities, I won't be able to misuse them. Whether I'm in my right mind or not."
"A logical conclusion to come to, elder brother, but not the correct one in this case." Lisa stated, from his open doorway. He and Lydia looked to the door to see not only Lisa, but all of his sisters, his parents, and Beetlejuice standing there in the hall.
"...I really need to start shutting my door more often…" Lincoln muttered before he continued in his normal tone. "What do you mean, Lisa?"
"While you are correct in your belief that you cannot possibly fall prey to temptation if you do not have access to the absurd levels of power Beetlejuice has, we strongly suspect that it would lead to more problems in the future when you may need to combine your abilities." The little mastermind explained. "And before you say you won't have a need to use his powers, we've had two incidents in which residents from the Neitherworld have crossed over specifically seeking the ghost in question. Both occasions being linked to Neitherworld Law Enforcement in some way, shape or form. They seem desperate enough to get Beetlejuice that they think all methods are acceptable to do so…"
"Then why don't we just turn him in?" Lynn Jr asked with a shrug.
"Hey!" BJ glared at the fifth oldest of the siblings, who glared back at him.
"No." Lynn Sr spoke up, surprising his family. "They don't want just Beetlejuice...they want to arrest Lincoln too. Inspector TooSlow said as much."
"So it would seem." The genius toddler interjected. "And as a result, we don't doubt there will be times where you will need to invoke the powers of Beetlejuice, whether you like it or not."
"Beetlejuice doesn't need my help in that respect…" The one son stated flatly.
"Unless I'm trapped inside you with no way out." BJ countered. "Or have you forgotten that fancy necklace the SWAT team forced on you?"
"...then what do you recommend!?" Lincoln snapped.
"Meet me outside in one hour." His second youngest sister answered simply, which surprised him greatly. "I will answer all of your remaining questions then. Oh, and Lydia, if you would be so kind, your presence would significantly assist our cause." She added, turning her attention to the raven haired girl beside him.
"Um...sure, Lisa." She replied, not sure what she had in mind.
"Thank you. Excuse me, everyone, I have preparations to make." The pint sized scientist said before turning on her heel and heading for the stairs. With Lisa out of the way, Lola stepped forward, looking about one step away from crying. Seeing the beauty obsessed twin before him made Lincoln feel even worse than he was a moment ago.
"Lola…" He tried to say, but before he could go any further, Lola charged at him and knocked him onto his back as she hugged him tightly.
"Lincoln! I'm sorry!" Lola cried out, burying her face into his chest.
"Huh? You're sorry? What fo-?"
"For not calling Beetlejuice when I had the chance...if I had, you wouldn't have been taken away and none of this would have happened…"
"Lola…"
"Don't say it's not my fault! It is!" Lola wailed into his shirt. "I could have called him and got us out of there, but I didn't because I hated him!" She was full on crying now, which was breaking not just his heart, but the hearts of his family and Lydia (but not BJ, of course). The white haired boy gently hugged his sobbing sister.
"Ssshhh...Lola, don't cry...I don't blame you for what happened...Not at all…" He told her in a soft, soothing tone.
"Because he's too busy blaming himself." Beetlejuice interjected. Lincoln glared at his possessor while still comforting the pageant princess.
"Beetlejuice has a point, Lincoln." The pale girl from Peaceful Pines spoke up. "You have been beating yourself up pretty hard…"
"Lincoln's been beating himself up!?" Leni gasped in horror.
"She means he's been judging himself really harshly over what happened…" An exasperated Lori explained.
"...Bro, listen up and open your mind." Luna said, moving forward in the group. "You did and nearly did some rash stuff. No one's denying that. But you weren't you at the time."
"Luna's right, Lincoln." Lynn nodded in agreement. "You just kinda lost your mind back there. Could have happened to anyone in the same circumstances. I mean, I probably would have smashed a couple chairs into the guy's face in your position."
"And Lori probably would have turned the guy into a human jelly roll." Luan commented, pointing a thumb at her older sister.
"But regardless of what others might have done, or what you almost did…" His mother started to say. "...the fact of the matter is you DIDN'T do it. You came to your senses. There's no point in dwelling on what may have happened."
"She's right, Lincoln." Lydia agreed with a nod. "Instead, you should be focused on what's ahead, and you won't be facing it alone. You have your family behind you-" The Loud clan at the door, and Lola still clinging to his shirt, all nodded. "-and it sounds like Lisa has a plan...whatever that is. Not only that, but you have BJ and me at your side." She gave him a bit of a smirk. "With that kind of army behind 'the man with the plan'-" She playfully tapped him on the nose, making him chuckle slightly. "-there's nothing we can't do."
"...are you...going to be alright, Linky?" The six year old beauty princess asked, looking up at him with big, sad eyes.
"...I think I will be, Lola." He answered, looking back at her with a weak, but genuine smile.
"No more being so hard on yourself?"
"It may be awhile before I stop doing that...but I'll try." He told her, gently brushing her hair with his hand. Lola didn't like that answer, but figured it was the best she was liable to get. She freed her brother from her bear hug and took a few steps back to rejoin the others. "Thanks everyone." He then turned to Lydia. "Especially you, Lydia."
"You're very welcome, Lincoln." She replied, just as the one son gave her a big hug. Her cheeks turned quite red, returning the embrace with him without hesitation.
"Awwwww…" The Loud sisters and Lincoln's parents all cooed (with Beetlejuice pretending to throw up). Lydia glanced back a bit from the corner of her eye at them, using her foot to nudge the door shut.
"Hey!" Lola objected, but too late. The door was shut on them. With the two of them now alone in the room, Lydia and Lincoln smiled to one another before Lincoln gently kissed Lydia on the cheek. She responded with a soft giggle and a kiss on the nose, before the two tenderly kissed each other on the lips.
About one hour later, as Lisa requested, Lincoln, Lydia and Beetlejuice all emerged from the house into the backyard. The little genius was outside waiting for them, standing beside a large, metal target connected to her laptop computer, the computer behind a clear blast shield. In her hands were a clipboard and a pen. "Ah. There you are. Not necessarily on time, but close enough for government work."
"So, what exactly do you have planned, Lisa?" Her only brother inquired, unable to fathom her logic from what he saw before him.
"By my logic, elder brother, two factors had caused your uncharacteristic behavior back in Great Lakes City. The first being stress induced by the situation, along with the auditory torment you were forced to sit through. A factor admittedly outside our control. However, the second factor is Beetlejuice's nigh unlimited power-"
"Ah, you flatter me, ya munchkin." BJ said with a chuckle.
"-and your lack of experience utilizing said overwhelming powers." The four eyed toddler continued, irked slightly by the interruption. "This much, we can do something about; which leads us to the here and now. Elder Brother, you are going to practice using his spectral powers." The one son shuddered when Lisa said that. He was still quite nervous at the prospect of using BJ's powers. "I know what you are thinking, Lincoln, but there is nothing to fear. We will start small and work our way up, so you can get used to handling that power. In addition, I suspect Lydia's presence would help keep you calm, should the unforeseen occur." Lincoln gulped, shaking a little. He considered just saying no, but then he felt Lydia's hand take hold of his.
"It'll be alright, Lincoln." She told him in a reassuring voice. The white haired boy took a deep breath and nodded to Lisa.
"Very well. Beetlejuice, if you would be so kind as to unleash the full extent of your power onto the target. I require a baseline to work off of to properly measure the amount of power you two utilize together."
"You want me to go all out, eh? Gladly!" The filthy phantom rolled up his sleeves and cracked his knuckles as he focused on the circular target. He smirked and pointed his hand ahead of him, which promptly turned into a cannon. Lisa calmly took shelter behind a blast shield just before the cannon fired, unleashing a powerful bolt of magic into the target. The target promptly exploded, leaving behind a broken metal rod and loose wires.
"Beetlejuice!" Lincoln scolded him.
"What can I say? I'm a loose cannon."
"It's ok, Lincoln. I expected that to happen and have a replacement ready." Lisa told him with a soft smile, quickly placing a new one in place of the ruined one. "And I still got a fairly clear reading. Now, I'm going to need you and Beetlejuice to become one, Lincoln." This was the part the boy was dreading, but he proceeded to summon the ghost into his head anyway, before he could talk himself out of it. "Good. Good. Now, I know Lincoln has already experienced roughly twenty percent of your power already, but let us start with about ten percent."
"Whatever cooks yer test tube, Marie Curie." BJ replied from Lincoln, as the boy once more became Lincoln-Juice.
"I guess you want me to zap the target just like BJ did?" The one son asked, his voice a fusion of his and the ghost with the most's.
"Precisely." Lisa confirmed. "As hard as you can."
"Ok...This shouldn't be so bad, Lincoln…" He quietly told himself, raising a shaky hand up. A beam of ghostly magic emitted from his fingers and hit a bullseye, sparking upon impact.
"Hmmm...according to my readings, that recorded roughly 11.6% of your full power." Lisa said, tapping her upper lip with a finger. "I guess a slight range of disparity is to be expected…Now, I will need you to recollect the moment when you and father had your encounter with that Inspector TooSlow gentleman."
"Why do you need me to do that?"
"The initial test established the control data, with no added variables. Now I wish to test a theory. Beetlejuice mentioned that it felt like you had more power than he had actually given you back in the city."
"Come to think of it, Linc here did pull some big things outta his non existent hat against the SWAT team." Beetlejuice commented through Lincoln's mouth. "Go ahead, Mr President. Give it a shot."
"I'll try…" The ecto-empowered boy closed his eyes, trying his best to mentally visualize the first moment he used BJ's powers. When his father was getting pummeled by fly swatters. When they threatened to arrest him and his father. After a moment of reliving the moment, Lincoln's eyes sprang open as he threw a new magical burst into the target.
"Excellent, Lincoln, Beetlejuice." Lisa smiled lightly as she turned her attention back to her computer. Her eyes widened as she saw the results. "By Babbage...the power reading has more than doubled."
"Whoa...How is that possible?" Lincolnjuice asked.
"I have a fairly educated theory, but I have one last test to make." The little genius pulled a pair of wireless headphones from behind her back and handed them to her brother. "Put these on and get ready to cast again."
"Um...ok." The middle Loud slowly donned the headpiece, wondering where she was going with this.
"Very good. Now, I apologize in advance for what I am about to do…" The brainy toddler said as she pulled out her phone, making both Lydia and Lincolnjuice very worried. "Standby, Miss Deetz." Lisa said before tapping on the screen. Lincoln went stiff for a second as, through the headphones, he could hear that infernal fox's song. With a scream of anger, the possessed boy let loose a powerful surge of magic, blasting the target right off its metallic arm. Lisa went slightly pale as she quickly deactivated the video on her phone.
"Lisa...don't ever do that again…" The one son growled, Lydia moving in to help him calm down.
"My sincerest apologies." The four year old scientist replied before glancing at the computer screen. "...Great Galileo's Ghost!" She exclaimed in shock.
"What is it, Lisa?" The raven haired teen asked as she comforted Lincoln.
"That last trial yielded a result seven times more powerful than the control test…" The pint sized intellectual responded, turning the laptop so they could see it.
"Deadly voo…"
"Yikes…" Was all Lincoln could say.
"This supports my current theory...it would appear that the reality warping powers of Beetlejuice are amplified through strong feelings of emotion. The more intense the feelings, the more powerful the increase of power."
"That makes sense." Lydia commented. "BJ himself tends to be at his best whenever he is trying to help me or one of his friends. He's even faced sandworms face to face in those cases."
"Indeed. And given the fact Lincoln is rather emotional himself, his heart would act as an organic super charger for Beetlejuice's magic." Lisa elaborated as she shut down her laptop. "Which makes it all the more important that you practice using Beetlejuice's powers. The more accustomed you get to utilizing such powerful magic, the less likely a repeat of the earlier incident will occur before we can find a method of separating you two."
"Speaking of…" BJ finally piped up from within Lincoln. "...if you're here, who's looking for that info?"
"I had created a computer algorithm to continue the search while I am away." The micro megamind explained simply. "It sends information to my phone if it finds anything relevant."
"Are you sure that's safe, Lisa?" Her concerned brother inquired.
"You need not worry yourself, Lincoln. I have put a number of failsafes into effect. The odds of something going wrong are astronomically low." She explained. "Now, let us proceed with the exercises…"
The practice went clear on until dinner, and even a little bit afterwards too. Lincoln was able to handle 10% of Beetlejuice's power quite easily, so they went right to 25% before it got too dark for them to continue. Lincoln separated himself from Beetlejuice and escorted Lydia upstairs to see her home while the ghost with the most stayed downstairs. The pugnacious spirit pondered seeing what was on TV when he felt a tug at his sleeve. Lola was trying to get his attention, looking like she was about to do something she was being forced to. "What's up, kid? Need a drink of water?"
"...I wanted to say thank you, Beetlejuice…" The prissy twin said quietly, trying not to be heard by her sisters. The ghost smirked mischievously.
"Come again?" He asked, putting a hand to his ear.
"...Thank you, Beetlejuice." She mumbled again, a little louder.
"One more-"
"Don't push it!" She snapped, causing him to recoil a bit. "...anyway, I appreciate that you came to rescue my brother and me…"
"Ah, think nothing of it, kid...just don't let it get around."
"Trust me. It's not something I plan to tell anyone…" Lola said, still slightly sour. "But back on topic...if you want to visit or play with Lana in our room...even if I'm there...go ahead." BJ blinked, staring down at the little girl.
"Seriously? You mean it?"
"Yes...but not while I'm sleeping!" She barked at him. "And no juicing my stuffed toys!"
"Whoa! Alright already...yeesh." The filthy phantom said, backing away from her. Still, being able to see his littlest buddy more often was truly a treat. "Is that all you wanted to say?"
"...pretty much. Now, if you'll excuse me…" The pint sized princess moved over to the couch, which was oddly empty, and changed the channel to her favorite prison pageant show. BJ turned his gaze toward the tv and smirked, floating over behind the furniture to watch too. The pageant princess could feel his presence and was tempted to yell at him, but decided that he wasn't bothering her right now. She didn't have to like him, but it didn't mean she had hostile to him all the time either.